"Man it is nice to have a car! - I will never take my little Tacoma for granted ever again!" - 11/25/13

Hey everyone! Sounds like another really fun week home without me! ;) Man no wonder y'all wanted me to leave so badly! I mean having all of the good food and traveling the whole world! Man... I see how it is!! ;) haha just kidding! I love hearing what is going on back home. Mom don't worry! It doesn't make me sad when I know where you guys are traveling or doing anything fun so no need to hide it! I kind of figured y'all would go to Arizona for Thanksgiving. I don't blame you!! I would too!! Get out of the cold Utah weather. That sound like so much fun! Take some pictures and Dad you should get a hole in one for me! That would be really cool! Well I hope all is going well with everyone. That is really sad news about Heidi's mom. I will defiantly keep her in my thought and prayers. Have they given her a Priesthood blessing? I know those work miracles. Well it sounds like all of the little kids are doing great! I wish I could be there to tease them all this Thanksgiving, but that is alright. I will just have to do it double in 2 years! :) Mom I wish I could have your good food this year for Thanksgiving! The food down here is good, but nothing compared to yours! We have already had 1 dinner and that was with our less active lady I have been working with so hard. She wrote down a recipe for her yams and she gave us all a copy to send home to our moms so I will be sending that home soon! The food was really good. She is a good cook and she always is feeding us good food! So with her she has not really been progressing anymore... We have been trying to get her to come to church again, but she hasn't. Now she is going out of town again for another week so we can't talk to her for awhile. I have been trying to do something special for her though. I have been trying to show love to her by doing little random acts of kindness. Like the other day I decided to make some oatmeal cookies and take them over to her. Lets just say it was a very fun experience trying to make all of those cookies! haha First off I was out of money to buy all of the ingredients, then second I put too much baking soda in so the first batch turned out kind of funky! haha us missionaries ate those ones! Then I figured it out and took her the better cookies! It was a lot of fun doing that though. It was something so simple, but it made me and her feel so good. I don't know if she ate them or threw them out, but that doesn't matter. What mattered was she felt loved. So I have been trying to do this in different ways. I am probably going to take her a picture of all of us missionaries next week with just a little thank you card or something. It is fun!! :) Speaking of oatmeal cookies.... Mom do you know how you sent me some in the MTC? Well would you want to do that again??? :) Those were soooo good! haha

Well I have been doing great this week! This week went by so fast! We had a great week with 14 lessons! Pretty good huh?? We are gradually picking up the pace and seeing more results. Still no baptisms, but we are getting a lot of less active members to come back to church. Hey we are doing what President Wall wants us to do. LOVE, SERVE, TEACH, and RESCUE! So that has been good. This week we had exchanges. So Elder Willis went over to Westbank and Elder Olsen came over here with me. It was a lot of fun. Elder Olsen is awesome and we have a lot of fun together. We ran into these kids at this one cowboy store and they stopped us and we talked for 2 hours. They just asked questions about what we believe and we answered them all. So we may have 2 more investigators! Right now we have 4 investigators, but only one is really progressing. The work here is still pretty slow, but we are trying to turn that around! It will happen! We just need to give it some time! :) So Elder Willis and I are getting along GREAT! He is awesome and we haven't had one problem the whole time. He is just like me. We are both layed back and we like to work hard. Another reason this week has been so good is because we have a car!! Man it is nice to have a car... I will never take my little Tacoma for granted ever again! So we have been able to do so much more work. But on Wednesday we have to give the car back to the sisters... Oh speaking of sisters.. I didn't tell y'all this last week one of the sisters went home because of medical reasons. It was kind of sad because us missionaries knew that was not the reason. She had been really struggling so she decided to go home. It was really sad.. But now we are getting a new sister and she is going to be serving here for a couple of months and then she is going to be going to Temple Square! Pretty cool huh? Serving down there would be awesome!

So I am trying to think of what else happened this week... There were a lot of really cool miracles of us showing up to peoples houses and them praying before hand to help them out. It is so cool being a part of Heavenly Fathers hand and helping him out in His work. I really love that. Oh last night the Walkers fed us at the church and as you know that is probably one of my favorite things ever! She is such a sweet lady and she really is like my mom down here. So don't worry mom.. There is someone out here who is looking out for me! The reason I love this little get together so much is because all of us bear our testimonies. I always feel the spirit so strongly. I love it!

So that was pretty much my week. It was really good! It went by pretty fast! The weather down here is really starting to change.. Who ever said that Louisiana is warm in the winter is so wrong! Every morning there is a little mist in the air and it is like 45 degrees out with wind. That may not sound that bad, but the humidity just cuts right through you. I still have not gone to get any sweaters so I think I am going to be doing that today. Since we have the car we are going to go over to Downtown and go down Canal street and have some beignets! I am super excited for that! 

Well this week I am really thankful for my family. Mom and Dad I love you both so much. Thank you for everything you have done for me throughout my life. I would not be the kid I am today without you two. I love you both so much! Being gone has really shown me how much I love our Gospel and how we believe so much in  families.  I know Heavenly Father put me here in our family because he wanted me to have the BEST mom and dad and sister and brothers ever! I love you guys so much! I am thankful for my mission. I have learned so much already. I have learned how to deal with disappointments and how to live on my own. I have learned that the only way to have joy in this life is through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It is so simple if you think about it. All we have to do is live the commandments and be the best we can be and we can be with our families forever. I am so thankful for that. I am thankful for the little things in this life that we sometimes take for granted like a car! haha But really we have it so nice.. It is humbling out here to see all of the poverty and heartaches. That is why people love us so much is because we have hope. We have the knowledge to happiness. Isn't that just awesome???  Well I think y'all get my point. I am learning so much out here and my testimony is growing so much. I love this work!

Well I hope y'all have a great week and a great Thanksgiving! Tell everyone hello from me and that I love them! Try not to eat too much food! Tell the little kids I love them and I miss them. And last but not least... I love you Mom and Dad! Have a great week! I will talk to y'all next week! LOVE YOU!

Love your son,
Elder Smith

PS. Thanks for going to get the shoes mom! I think a 10 would be good!
PSS I am sorry I haven't gotten any pictures to you... I have not been doing too good on taking pictures.. We are super busy and I forget... hahah I will do better!
PSSS Is there anything you want to know about being out here?
PSSSS I love you!